en, on listening, from their
apartment, to the horrid tumult, the outcries of a furious
multitude, and the reports of fire-arms echoing and reverberating
through the vaulted halls and spacious courts of this immense
edifice, and dubious whether their own lives were not the object of
the assault!

"After passing through various chambers of the palace, now silent
and sombre, but which I had traversed in former days, on grand
court occasions in the time of Ferdinand VII., when they were
glittering with all the splendor of a court, we paused in a great
saloon, with high-vaulted ceiling incrusted with florid devices in
porcelain, and hung with silken tapestry, but all in dim twilight,
like the rest of the palace. At one end of the saloon the door
opened to an almost interminable range of other chambers, through
which, at a distance, we had a glimpse of some indistinct figures
in black. They glided into the saloon slowly, and with noiseless
steps. It was the little Queen, with her governess, Madame Mina,
widow of the general of that name, and her guardian, the excellent
Arguelles, all in deep mourning for the Duke of Orleans. The little
Queen advanced some steps within the saloon and then paused. Madame
Mina took her station a little distance behind her. The Count
Almodovar then introduced me to the Queen in my official capacity,
and she received me with a grave and quiet welcome, expressed in a
very low voice. She is nearly twelve years of age, and is
sufficiently well grown for her years. She had a somewhat fair
complexion, quite pale, with bluish or light gray eyes; a grave
demeanor, but a graceful deportment. I could not but regard her
with deep interest, knowing what important concerns depended upon
the life of this fragile little being, and to what a stormy and
precarious career she might be destined. Her solitary position,
also, separated from all her kindred except her little sister, a
mere effigy of royalty in the hands of statesmen, and surrounded by
the formalities and ceremonials of state, which spread sterility
around the occupant of a throne."

I have quoted this passage not more on account of its intrinsic
interest, than as a specimen of the author's consummate art of conveying
an impression by what I may call the tone of his style; and this appear